A quick word first.1
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You may be a winner!
Earlier this week a man won $1,000,000 in the Arkansas state lottery without having to pay a penny for a scratch-ticket. Instead, he got it as a reward for receiving his second Covid shot.
Good for him! And good for Arkansas for encouraging its citizens to get inoculated. At present only 45% of its adult residents have been fully vaccinated (compared to 60% nationwide, with Vermont topping the list at 77%).
But here’s the bad news.
That million-dollar-man story is the exception, not the rule. Arkansas’s well-intended incentive plan has been a bust. Its Department of Health spent one million dollars of federal grant money to buy 50,000 lottery tickets to distribute as as prizes.2 At last count barely 4,000 of them have been claimed. Perhaps the story about the recent winner will bump up participation, but the state has a long way to go.
Fortunately, there are other ways to get people on board. In Monday’s New York Times, David Leonhardt highlighted other, more promising approaches to get reluctant people to protect themselves and others in their communities. The lessons he draws from them also apply to negotiation, whether it’s with one individual or a much larger group.
In a broad sense, the on-going back and forth between public health officials and different segments of the populace is a mega-negotiation. The challenge on all sides is clarifying and then addressing a range of concerns and interests. What is each group protecting and what does each want to get?
One size doesn’t fit all.
A Kaiser poll at the start of the year asked adult Americans if they planned to get vaccinated. Twenty-three percent said no, and another 28% said they would wait and see. In a recent follow-up survey, though, a quarter of that combined cohort subsequently changed their minds, though for different reasons.
Many said that seeing that the vaccines have been safe for millions of other Americans prompted their decision to participate. Leonhardt suggests that “emphasizing the safety of the vaccines—rather than just the danger of Covid” made the difference.
For others whose views shifted, it was the personal touch. Firsthand encouragement from friends, relatives, and long-time caregivers made the difference. Door-to-door outreach to people skeptical about science and mainstream media may prove more effective than televised ads.
For still others, the prospect of social inconvenience was the deciding factor. As Leonhardt notes, there’s fierce state-by-state debate over mandating inoculation. Some employers require it, at least for in-person work. As the new surge accelerates, tighter controls on travel and access to public facilities seem ever more likely.
It wasn’t that long ago that the vaccines were in short supply. Now we have a surplus, much of that due to continued unwillingness of tens of millions of people to protect themselves and others.
There will be continued public appeals, of course, and perhaps new programs to amp up participation. But one-on-one conversations with family, colleagues, friends, and neighbors, count, as well. As in any negotiation, the first step in persuading someone to take action is understanding and addressing their particular concerns.
Housekeeping
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As an alternative reward, Arkansas officials spent $532,500 on 50,000 Game and Fish vouchers (for fishing licenses). At the most recent count, only 1,500 had been claimed.
Perhaps another way to encourage vaccine take up is to take it away.
There is significant gaps in delivery of the vaccine to low and middle income countries - so by donating the surplus (not delivering it to vaccine hesitant areas in the first place) the vaccines can go into the arms that want them.
Then the choice for the sceptic becomes - look after myself (feed the ego) or help others (be altruistic and donate my dose).
How would that look in a mass negotiation scenario?